Thomas Edison's Light Bulb
By the second half of the 19th century the second widest use of electricity (after the telegraph) was artificial light. The arc lights that Humphry Davy had developed were now being used as city lights, powered by noisy generators and creating blindingly bright light sources—mostly exclusively used in open spaces; very obnoxious and dangerous for household use. By the 1870s, it was understood that an electrical invention that could replace the household candle would be revolutionary. Famously, Thomas Edison in the US, Joseph Swan in the UK, and Alexander Lodygin in Russia, all arrived at the same conclusion: heating a filament inside vacuum prevented the filament from burning and could produce a dimmer, better controlled light source than the arc light. It was also noticed that only very few materials could do the trick. Famously (or infamously), Edison applied his entrepreneurial ambition, marketing ability, and legal power to come at the top and be considered the person who made the lightbulb a household item. On December 31, 1879 Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb. It was during this time that he said: "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."
Source: Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity. Presented by Jim Al-Khalili, BBC, 2011
Public Domain
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!